Tag: Journalism

A significant story ignored by American media outlets; Google funneled more than $30 billion out of the pockets of millions of Americans, handing their livelihoods directly to the Chinese government, and the “great recession” is now a “great depression” for a fair majority of small American families who relied on eBay for their survival.

Over the fourth of July holiday weekend, I intended to create a youtube video for personal monetization in an attempt to supplement my failing ebay business. The saying, “Those who can’t, teach” applies here. It was supposed to be a SEO, Cassini search and A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) oriented video but the more I researched, the more the direction of my video veered further and further off course as I learned why so many eBay sellers lost pretty close to everything; their businesses, their homes, their marriages, their ability to survive. Why did it happen? What was the cause of it all? The answer is senseless!

Someone at Google made the decision to remove our listings from their search engine, ensuring that we would never see a sale for the next 5 years to come. The manual deletion of eBay by Google was done by a human being.

As a rule, all other search engines crawl Google and post their results in their own search engines. Since ebay wasn’t included in Google searches, eBay wasn’t included in any search.

Ebay Corporation acknowledged it may have lost up to $200 million in revenue, but what has never been mentioned in any of the articles I read during my research is that Ebay only generates an average of 15% of its profits from the actual sales of its vendors, the small American seller. This means the damage done to eBay Corporation was dust bunnies under the bed in comparison to the utter devastation done to its vendors.

On paper the losses incurred by the individuals who make up the small American selling population is somewhere in the range of $3 billion. When you add the cost of lost revenue; sales that didn’t happen on inventory that sat on the shelves beyond its expiration date, overhead losses and the balancing act of losing their livelihoods, their homes, their cars, and their ability to even pay basic living costs as a result from the feud between eBay and Google , the numbers extend far above $30 billion. Ebay did not take the brunt of the “manual deletion”. As with all of the big bank bailouts, the fortune 500 free rides, again, it was the people who bared the burden of bad leadership and bad decisions.

For the duration of the time ebay was removed from the worlds search engines, at no time did eBay ever attempt to off set or counter balance the loss in sales traffic or revenue. There was no television advertising, no newspaper ads, no magazine ads, not even a silly Weird Al Yankovich style social campaign. American Ebay sellers were literally snuffed out while John Donahoe was handed a $130 million severence package and Devin Wenig took the helm. eBay, under Devin Wenigs leadership, plastered Chinese government-owned products all over its front pages and at the top of every “best match” and “lowest price” search result. Ebay shoppers worldwide were directed and redirected to shop China at a time when American businesses were most vulnerable.

It wasn’t until 2015, four years after the fact that ebay began to roll out corrections of the issues that caused Google to take action, and six years until we saw one commercial on one single TV channel… for less than a week. Unfortunately for todays small businesses the unethical and manipulative behavior continues within ebay’s own search mechanism. Government owned manufacturing plants in China continue to spam, flood and dominate ebay’s search engines with toxic, cheap manufacturer direct to consumer products, and eBay continues to suppress small American vendor listings because, “it’s what the public wants”.

Is it? Is it really what the public wants?

I’m pretty sure the only reason anybody ever bought what appears to be a $800.00 dress for $1.00 was because they didn’t have the appropriate finances to buy a proper dress. Common sense might tell you one thing, but need usually dictates everything else.

As you can see, the direction of my video quickly turned away from eBay search engine optimization. The goal was to introduce eBayers to the many webmaster tools Google offers because so many are unaware of it. For a brief moment I even became a Google cheerleader but after uncovering the truth and living a life of utter financial devastation as a result of the feud between ebay and Google, I’m having a hard time cheering either of them.

The end of this video sprite was supposed to segway into an exploration of Google webmaster tools for struggling eBay sellers, especially the home based businesses, but I just couldn’t do it, not with a clear conscience. It’s safe to say that at this moment, I have no love for Google. I’m so angry about what I’ve learned that I decided to scrap the video and share what remains.

What happened to the small eBay vendor can never be changed and most will never be able to recover. We watched the downfall of one of the worlds greatest and most influential community based sites without ever actually knowing the story behind it.

Googles’ actions against ebay may not have been a deliberate punch in the gut for eBay based businesses, many of which are single women, women with special needs children and sole proprietorships created at a time when jobs are scarce, I find myself struggling with forgiveness equally as much as I continue to struggle financially.

Millions of ebay sellers were rallying to have Donald J. Trump elected into office under the false belief that it was inequality of trade deals being the root cause of our destruction when the reality of it all is that it was Google, Devin Wenig and eBay all along.

Fair notice to mainstream media. As you continue to force your negativity, your opinions and your false rhetoric down the throats of mainstream America, you’re failing to recognize the obvious fact that the mainstream population is moving away from you. There is a reason we’ve turned you off and tuned you out. Your life and your opinions are no more important than the millions of unemployed, under employed, self employed, small American business owners and hard working individuals that populate this country. There are more of us than there are of you. It’s time to see yourselves for who you really are.

Your life is not important and neither is your opinion. Opinions are like assholes. The media seems to have a few too many of them.

Journalism and reporting is not subjective. It’s foundation is objective.

Celebrities do not have an opinion. We pull your strings, you dance.

News, “reporters” are objects we turn on at 6pm. You tell us facts, and then you go back into your box until tomorrow at the same time, same place.

Get over yourselves. If I am not looking at your face in the mirror when I brush my teeth in the morning, then your opinion means nothing. If you don’t understand what that means, and clearly you don’t, it means, we see our own reflection or the reflection of those who are important to us, and those are the only opinions that matter.

I am tired of feeling judged by a “news” entity who doesn’t even know I exist. I’m tired of you believing that I should be told what I should and shouldn’t think, feel, eat, breathe, live. You are a select few who have no idea what it’s like to get in MY car and drive to MY job every day. Here in the REAL WORLD my life is much more important than yours.

When you stop reporting your opinion, I will reconsider adding you to the list of channels I subscribe to.